Justice
T.U.Mehta

Socio-political Conditions

Before narrating some significant incidents of his
life, it would be proper to make a brief reference to the social, economic
and political conditions prevailing in India at the time of his birth
because in the ultimate analysis, it is these socio-economic forces which
give birth to the revolutions of the type which leaders like Mahaviras and
Buddha sponsored.

The most significant aspect of the political history of
India, right from the times of Mahavira (6 century B.C.) upto the present
day, is that India has rarely been politically united. The periods
witnessing political unity have been extremely short in the face of
prolonged history of thousands of years. The second remarkable aspect of
political history of India is that when politically united under one rule,
our country prospered and earned a respectable place in world community.
The third and the most important aspects of our history is that even
though our political leaders failed us, mostly in achieving political
unity, we retained our national unity mainly because of our cultural unity
which our people have developed through ages by their inherent sagacity
and wisdom. This cultural unity is expressed through our way of life, our
spirit of tolerance and accommodation and our capacity of endurance and
patience which we have been able to exhibit commonly irrespective of our
castes, creed or religion. The main contributing factor to these virtues
is the power of assimilation possessed by the Aryan race, settled in the
country. Aryans learnt in plenty from the more civilized, original
settlers of this land but they also made their own original contribution
to enhance the ideas which they learnt. When Mohammedans came to India,
they, unlike the previous invaders, came with their own religion and
culture, with the result that they could not be assimilated in the
existing Indian culture. On the contrary, they tried to impose their own
by forcible conversions and political, social and economic repression. But
by the passage of time even Islam was influenced by Upanisadic thoughts
giving birth to Indian Sufism which attracted both Hindu and Muslim
masses. Today an average Muslim's social and ethical attitude is not
fundamentally different from that of an average Hindu or Jaina or
Christian. One can find a difference only in degrees. But an Indian Muslim
or an Indian Christian is more an Indian than his co-religionist
elsewhere. Thus our culture, developed by the people of our nation through
ages, has saved our national unity, inspite of our political leaders'
failure and inspite of the partition of our country on the eve of our
political independence.

The roots of above analysis are found in the
socio-political environment, prevailing during the time of Mahavira. Those
were the times when there was no paramount power to control the whole or
even a great bulk of the country. There were small states and republics
having monarchical as well as non-monarchical forms of government each
trying to dominate the other. Political leadership in both the forms of
government had failed to unite the country as a one whole. Even in the
regions not having monarchy, the political structure was mainly
oligarchical in character, power vested in the hands of the elite.
Socially, on account of the belief that gods can be pleased to make our
life comfortable only by sacrifices, a priestly class with great vested
interests grew up and the growth of Brahmanical scriptures, prescribing
intricate and highly specialized rules for sacrifices, made the services
of the priestly class inevitable even for the ruling princes and political
leaders. However, the thinkers like Parsva, Kapila, Uddalaka Aruni,
Yajnavalkya and many other Rsis of later Upanisadas had started making
dents on stronghold of sacrificial priests and princes. These great
thinkers had already started a thinking process which was given a
revolutionary push by Mahavira and Buddha and which eventually proved to
be a cementing force of cultural unity inspite of the internecine quarrels
between the political leaders of the day. A cursory look at the political
situation in the time of Mahavira will show this.